Downregulated vimentin and upregulated E-cadherin in T1 stage non-small-cell lung cancer: does it suggest a mesenchymal-epithelial transition?
Abstract:
Lung cancer has been a major threat to human health worldwide. Vimentin (VIM) and E-cadherin (E-cad) are molecular markers that play important roles in epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT), which has been shown to be correlated with tumor progression. Herein, we investigated the associations between clinicopathological parameters and VIM/E-cad expression in primary T1 stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC). Real-time PCR was performed on RNA extracted from tumor tissue isolated from 54 patients with T1 stage NSCLC. Immunohistochemistry was used to measure the protein levels of VIM and E-cad. The paired-samples t-test, independent-samples t- test, Kappa test, and nonparametric test were used to perform statistical analyses. The expression of VIM were lower (P The RNA of VIM in adenocarcinomas was significantly higher than that found in squamous cell carcinomas (P